Sydney has kept up its impressive pre-season form with a crushing 4-0 win over North Queensland at Shark Park on Saturday night.
Skipper Steve Corica gave the hosts the lead in the seventh minute and Brendan Gan put the Sky Blues in the driving seat with a goal two minutes into the second half.
Kofi Danning and Terry McFlynn both scored late on much to the delight of the 5,000 people that attended the match.
“We can’t take too much out of it but the good thing is we’ve kept another clean sheet and we’ve scored four goals,” Corica said after the match.
“It’s obviously going to be a different team that we play up in North Queensland. We’re looking forward to the challenge though.”
The Sky Blues now have eight-straight friendly wins under their belts and are yet to concede a goal, but coach Vitezslav Lavicka is not losing focus.
“I have good feeling from this game but no celebrate, pre season still going, (the) season starts in August,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Gold Coast put in a dominant performance to smash New Caledonia 5-0 in a pre-season friendly in Noumea on Saturday night.
The new Hyundai A-League team was on the score sheet inside five minutes when an unmarked Andrew Basic turned in Joel Porter’s cross at the far post.
Matt Osman sealed the result with a well-taken goal in the 68th minute before late goals to Gol Gol Mebrahtu, Steve Pantelidis and Michael Thwaite completed the rout.
Coach Miron Bleiberg is happy with the progress his team is making as the start of the A-League season draws closer.
“It was a good game for us and I think overall the win was the result of superior fitness and organisation because they (New Caledonia) are quite a good side with a few good individual players,” Bleiberg said.
“It was only one-nil at half time and if Jess (Vanstrattan) had not made one or two good saves we could have gone in at the break level.”
“We talked at half-time about not playing too many square balls and looking for more penetration. In the second half we did that and it worked well for us.”
“It was an improvement from how we played against North Queensland Fury last Tuesday, so we are heading in the right direction.”
“The whole point of this trip was to get everyone together and have a tough game, so it’s been a very good exercise.”
United head back to the Gold Coast on Monday before embarking on the next leg of their overseas tour on Monday when they fly out to Singapore followed by Hong Kong.
